All posts by cbrunett

Shada Abd Alkader: Camper, Student, Traveller

Profile

Shada Abd Alkader is what you might call a Global Citizen. Born and raised in Ramallah, West Bank, she started traveling before she could remember. “I have family everywhere,” she explains to me over Zoom from her bedroom in Palestine, “So when I was a kid we used to go and visit them.” Currently, she is in her fourth year at Birzeit University just outside her hometown. She sits on her bed, focused and carefully explaining her experiences in softly accented English. For a brief moment, when someone opens her bedroom door she speaks rapid-fire Arabic to ward them off.

We made our acquaintance through a mutual friend, Kristen Chang, who attended Wellesley College with me and Camp Rising Sun with Shada. Campers apply for the full-scholarship camp. Shada tells me that the application process is quite difficult. Children and grandchildren of past campers aren’t allowed to apply, and references and transcripts are required. The more applicants from a country or state, the more difficult it becomes. “From Palestine, it was pretty easy,” she laughs, though that hardly seems the case.

Camp Rising Sun is run by the Louis August Jonas Foundation which prides itself on 90 years of helping teenagers become leaders. They have separate sessions for young women and young men from 30 different countries and 10 U.S. states. “They look for people who have something to offer,” Shada says. “They have passion and they have potential to do something when they grow older.” Carefully designed activities allow campers to hone their leadership skills and grow close to each other by allowing campers to confide in and lead one another. Shada described the first week as a bonding experience. Counselors ran a particularly challenging schedule, with activities focused on bringing people together. More than a few tears are shed throughout the process. Shada explains that everyone is unbelievably close by the end, “I do believe that everyone was already—I don’t have a word for it, I guess ‘amazing?’—in the beginning, but nobody knew it.”

Shada not only met great people, she learned a lot about herself. Camp Rising Sun emphasizes experiential learning. “You’re isolated from the real world, basically. You live in a tent in the middle of the forest, and I never get to experience that here. For example, you sleep under the stars once a week. And it was very very nice because there are no lights and the stars are very beautiful…We used to build things, like a treehouse or a gazebo.” She says that those experiences—including her first use of power tools—were nothing like what she had expected to do as a teenager.

Shada had a slightly different experience during her time in Finland, where she spent a semester abroad via the EU’s student exchange program, Erasmus. While she found the education style to be similar to her home university’s, the experience was different from the curated experience of Camp Rising Sun. She wasn’t sure what to expect. She tells me that she didn’t have an image of Finland, other than how safe it was. Still, she was surprised by certain things. She describes the simultaneous friendliness and “coldness” of Finnish natives. “They do not try to make you feel comfortable. But they are so friendly. It’s weird.” Where Camp Rising Sun was a conglomeration of many people representing many cultures, studying abroad was an immersion in a single, unified culture. Shada says that often when she meets people abroad “people assume things. But I don’t really get offended.” While she wishes they would try to learn more about her and her culture before making assumptions, it doesn’t surprise her. “I understand that they mean no harm and they’re not trying to offend me, so I’m ok with it.”

She tells me she was more surprised by her own revelations about her culture. “We’re very family-oriented, people really care about each other, as Palestinians. And, I know that—but when I went abroad…It was something I felt was missing.” In Finland, she traveled extensively within the country and to Norway, Estonia, and the Netherlands with friends. Her friends, she says, weren’t Finnish, but others studying abroad and going through a similar experience. Something about being “foreign” in a new place drew them together. While Camp Rising Sun and her semester abroad were quite different experiences, both taught her about herself. “I didn’t think I was able to do certain things on my own and I was able to do them,” she muses. Without her travels, she never would have proved herself wrong.

American Words, American Lives

Op-Ed,

The past three and a half years of the Trump presidency have introduced many privileged Americans to a new sensation: distrust. Donald Trump has told the most recorded lies of any sitting president—but, of course, that’s only if you believe the fact-checkers. Fake news and false information are nothing new under this administration, but the undercutting of media takes on a whole new meaning in light of COVID-19. Trump’s common use of misinformation and the way news sites cover it has been dangerous from the start, but when it comes to this new disease it’s turned deadly.

Take Colorado. On Sunday, April 19th, photos captured by Alyson McClaran and video recorded by the Twitter user @MarcZenn surfaced of a peculiar standoff: a nurse with sunglasses, an N95 mask, and the usual green scrubs stands with his arms folded in a crosswalk while a middle-aged blond woman hangs out the window of her RAM truck, a protest sign slapped across her windshield and a “USA” jersey on. She, part of an anti-lockdown gridlock, can be heard yelling “You get to go to work. Why can’t I?”and “If you want communism, go to China!” at the man, who does not answer.

This interaction is one of many taking place across multiple states, as self-professed conservatives demand that businesses reopen to protect the economy in the face of a global pandemic. Most Colorado protestors were in cars, but in other states demonstrators gathered in large crowds without proper distancing or protection. But their safety, or the safety of those they might come into contact with, is not the main concern. They brought everything from signs to automatic machine guns to their demonstrations, demanding that Governors repeal their stay-at-home orders. These manifestations are only the newest display of a deeply divided America. The protests and counter-protests show that division, but so too does news coverage and government response.

At the time of “Operation Gridlock”, Colorado had nearly 10,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 420 deaths from the disease. This fact was reported in all articles written about the demonstration, but similarities stopped there. The Fox News article “Coronavirus standoff: Photos purportedly show Colorado health care workers at odds with anti-lockdown protesters” by Greg Norman focuses on the fact that more people have filed for unemployment than died, and that the photographed nurses refused to state their names or where they worked (hardly incomprehensible, when doctors have been fired for speaking about a lack of PPE). Fox News stated that thousands of protestors drove out, and omitted any quotes from the photographed woman. The CNN article “Health workers face anti-lockdown protesters in dramatic photos” by David Williams quoted the demonstrator right off the bat and stated that “hundreds” of people participated, not thousands, before putting out a few statistics about the protests across the country, and the percentage of stay-at-home orders. The two news sites diverge in their political leanings, and the identity of their readerships could not be clearer. Conservatives see an overblown response suppressing their financial capacity. Liberals see a dangerous, uninformed pushback against logical sanctions.

Colorado Governor Jared Polis has responded by announcing the guidelines that will be instituted after April 26th, when the stay at home order expires. Some businesses will begin to reopen as a transition through May 4th, where these “safer at home” guidelines will be re-evaluated and widened. The President’s response is slightly different. He tweeted three separate tweets to “LIBERATE” Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia. Other states have been left unnamed, but many reporters noted that the three that Trump named have Democratic Governors. Federal response to the protests has been mixed. As the BBC reports:

“President Donald Trump and his White House have expressed seemingly opposing views on the protests. Last week, Mr Trump and his Covid-19 taskforce unveiled new guidance to begin re-opening state economies [which has not been yet used by states]…But a day after the administration’s plan was announced, the president tweeted the slogans of the “Liberate” protests in several Democratic-run states.”

This duality of information and statements has become the status quo, but proves to be more confusing than ever. COVID-19 is the new frontier for smear campaigns against “fake news” and criticism of mainstream media. For instance, when looking for footage of Denver’s Operation Gridlock on Youtube you would come across an ad for Epoch Times, which claimed to have uncovered government corruption ignored by “institutional media” that “makes Watergate look like nothing in comparison.” When the President’s strategy is to undercut news and redefine criticism as falsity, his supporters are quick to doubt reports of mismanagement and vulnerability.

But the mismanagement of this pandemic—from the Administration’s refusal to distribute tests and respirators to states to its encouragement of these protests—threatens everyone. These Americans could avoid exposure if they chose to stay home as recommended. Those who are in danger of poverty due to job loss could lobby for more comprehensive support for unemployed Americans—perhaps closer to the $2000 per month Canadian citizens will receive. The problem is that the falsehoods of politicians have masked the very real risk of infection. For the first time, Trump’s encouragement of the disruptive, violent attitude of his supporters endangers them and others. And when they fall ill—which a projected third will—the people that treat them will be the nurses they screamed at.

Ida: Pasts Unburied

Movie Review: "Ida"

Ida (2013) is a film with a uniquely layered story, evoking multiple periods of Polish history through the lives of its protagonists. The Polish language film, a 2015 Best Foreign Film Academy Award winner, was directed by Pawel Pawlikowski and written by Pawlikowski and playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz. Pawlikowski was born in Warsaw in 1957 and grew up in Poland before leaving for the UK at age fourteen. In an interview with NPR, he explains that “in a way, Ida is an attempt to recover the Poland of my childhood.” Raised catholic, he learned that his paternal grandmother was a Jewish woman who died in Auschwitz in his late teens.

Set in 1962, the Poland of his youth, Ida follows a young woman about to take her vows as a catholic nun (Agata Trzebuchowska) as she meets her only living relative––her aunt, Wanda Gruz (Agata Kulesza)––and learns she is the daughter of two Polish Jews who died during the Holocaust. Her name is not Anna, but Ida Lebenstein. She and her aunt travel to her childhood home to uncover the truth of their shared history. Her visit to her aunt, which she undertakes only on the orders of her mother superior, dislodges her entire identity. But any reaction or emotion is strongly subdued. Trzebuchowska makes her debut in the film, having been scouted by Pawlikowski’s friends from a cafe. Her pale, concerned face manages to convey all the confusion and uncertainty her character never speaks of. This soft, sweet character is perfectly balanced by Kulesza’s portrayal of “Red Wanda,” a jaded judge and former state prosecutor whose love for her sister is revived by Ida’s presence.

The movie’s rapidly-paced plot is belied by the quiet, pregnant dialogue and drawn out shots. Filmed in black and white with a now out of style 3:4 ratio, which appears boxier than our normal widescreen ratios, the cinematography evokes the French New Wave style of cinema that was popular during the late 1950s and early 1960s. As a result, before any character speaks or any plot is revealed, we are transported to the time period of the film. We are confronted by a new perspective and the first layer of history is brilliantly clear. The in-era cinematography does nothing to traditionalize the radically honest content of the film, which unearths still-silenced truths about the cultural and individual effects of the Nazi occupation of Poland. While the images are black and white, the world they portray is anything but. Whatever idea we have of Communist Poland in the 1960s (if we have one at all) is certainly less complex than the story of a Jewish-Catholic soon-to-be nun and her alcoholic, tired, and righteous aunt road tripping through the backwoods to find whatever truth they can of their shared past.

Ida and Wanda connect in a way neither expect and Wanda decides to bring Ida to their past home in hopes of discovering where her parents are buried. Their differences are clear: where Ida is quiet, Wanda is aggressive. Where Ida is yielding, Wanda is demanding. Where Ida is restrained, Wanda is self-indulgent. As they travel from one town to another in search of answers Wanda seems to drive their quest, though the camera follows Ida. As a result, what we do not see is as important as what we do. We wander to the barn with Ida while a drunken Wanda drills Feliks Skiba, the current owner of the family home, for answers. Ida’s pale, soft face is in awe of the stained-glass window her mother made “to make the cows happy” when Wanda returns to the screen with the location of Feliks’ father, Szymon. We watch the shadows of tree branches play across the windshield of their car before we cut suddenly to an empty road. A moment later the car is being towed out of a ditch and Wanda is put in a holding cell to sleep off her intoxication. Occurring throughout the film, these hidden scenes––where the important action that takes place off-screen––mirror the history of World War Two which, to this day, has been obscured by censorship and revisionism. 

Thus, the second layer of history begins to unfold. While wrapped up in the intricately human paradoxes of 1962 in Poland, we find ourselves questioning the knowledge we have of the Nazi occupation and the country’s role in the Holocaust. The fact that neither aspect of World War Two is explicitly named but remains the undeniable focus of the film reveals Pawlikowski’s professional and personal experience. 

Pawlikowski’s personal ties to Poland and its past help to explain the casual intricacy of the cultural background of the film, but Trzebuchowska’s and Kulesza’s performances are what truly keep the complex plot clear. Both carry the dark, tired ambiance the country takes on through each packed scene. Few could carry the script the way they do.

Still of Ida: Agata Trzebuchowska in the bottom right corner, drawing her hair back over her shoulder
Agata Trzebuchowska in Ida (2013)

Their motivations are revealed by what they don’t say as clearly as by what they do. The fact that their reunion and their drive to find their dead family is motivated by what is unsaid and left forgotten makes these silences all the more meaningful.

Ida and Wanda travel to find Szymon Skiba, picking up a handsome alto saxophonist named Lis, who seems to play the role of “distracting love interest” that women traditionally take on in old black and white films. While it is rather refreshing to see a man boiled down to sexual tempter, his character falls flat because all the depth and development are given to Ida and Wanda. Their journey becomes one of self-discovery. Wanda continually pressures Ida to live in the outside world a little before taking her vows and giving it all up. “It”, of course, doesn’t refer to living in a nice house and cooking her own meals, but rather alcohol, smoking, and “carnal love,” especially with Lis. The lack of soundtrack, combined with the constant close framing of each characters’ face, evokes a realistic sense of discordant views and desires. These shots allow awkwardness, overt discomfort, and ultimately anger to come clearly through without a verbal explanation from any actor. 

As Wanda and Ida continue on to find their answers before trying to return to their lives, the quick cuts, off-center closeups, and isolating long shots keep us in tune with the intimate knowledge that a twitch of the eyes or hands can portray. The pale, monotone faces of Wanda and Ida give more insight into their minds than their dialogue ever does.

As such, it is ultimately the cinematography that gives Ida its slightly unnerving mood and deeply engaging tone. Not only is the film in black and white with unusual ratios that introduce the past perfectly, but cinematographers Lukasz Zal and Ryszard Lenczewski also frame the actors with shots that seem just off. By keeping things gray and on edge, each image is a still of the film itself: dark, compact, and riveting.

Re: “When did Wellesley give up on Wellesley?”: Starting at Home

Letter to the Editor

To The Editor: 

“When did Wellesley give up on Wellesley?” argues that Wellesley students are isolated in our “bubble” and apathetic toward the surrounding community. But in a time of global connectedness and incessant news, there is no isolation from crisis: there’s only prioritization. Want to know about isolation? Ask an alum about their experience at Wellesley with landlines and snail-mail. There was little way of knowing about the struggles of their hometowns or the nuances of global crises. Now, anyone with a Twitter account or internet access can keep up with current events around the world. 

And what a world it is. Rumors of World War III, economic crashes, and viral outbreaks are only too close to home. News sites careen from disaster to disaster leaving students adrift in hyperawareness. We know so much—this year the world may enter climate departure (when the coldest day reaches a temperature higher than the historic high), hate crimes are on the rise, the likelihood of entering the job market during an economic recession increases every day. Despite our excellent education, most of us feel unprepared to confront approaching catastrophes. So instead of flailing against the world at large, we’ve turned our gaze inwards. We prioritize by changing what we can in our sphere of influence. Global climate change? The US administration may not listen to us, tucked away as we are. But our administration might. Homelessness? We aren’t currently in a position to change global economic policy, but we can ensure that everyone on this campus has suitable living spaces. If we can’t make life in our little “bubble” better, how will we change the world?

Rounds in Ronda

Feature Report, ,

My parents and I had just settled into the cafe when the first bull turned the corner. He was led, none too gently, to a shaded spot in front of the closest church—there were four in this plaza alone—and before our drinks touched the tabletop, a second bull was standing next to him. 

We stared openly at the animals. It was our first day in Ronda and only a week into our trip in Spain. After spending a semester abroad, I was enjoying showing my parents around towns I had visited during my studies. The square we sat in was abandoned except for my family, the bulls, and the man who had walked them over. He scrolled through his phone, glancing up every now and then to see if the animals had moved. But they remained dozy and docile. 

Suddenly, there was a bright rattling and the tinkling of bells. A beautiful little cart, painted white and decorated with flowers, emerged from over the hill, pulled by a pickup truck. The sharp contrast of dusty mechanics and carefully maintained woodwork resembled a heavily pierced grandson leading his lace-covered grandmother up into the square.  Truck and cart came to a gentle halt in front of us and I saw an intricate, looping religious monstrance perched in the middle of all the fresh flowers and bells. Constructed almost like a chandelier, it held a painting of Mary, Mother of Jesus, floating in a gilded frame. I’d seen elaborate, gilded displays like this before but had no context for this one. Were they preparing for a religious festival? I lifted my iPhone to film it and found that it felt strange to do so. As if I were peering through a kaleidoscope into the past; each facet clear but unreadable as a whole. The plaza fell silent once again.

And then the church doors swung wide open.

 In an instant, the Plaza Duquesa de Parcent was echoing with church bells and rapid-fire Spanish. It was like a spell had been broken; the quiet mountain town burst into vibrant life. Locals carrying flowers emerged into the sunlight dressed in jewel-toned ruffles and dark velvet. Women, men, and children swarmed the square. They chatted, laughed and, as men with dark wooden guitars appeared, danced. Some carried ornate staves made of ancient, holy silver and wore stoles. But instead of setting a solemn, reserved tone, the religious ornaments only evoked more joyous shouts and music. The sharp contrast between ceremony and informality was everywhere: though those who held the artifacts were careful with their special charges, they ate olives and chatted with friends in cafes. A man on horseback in a black flat-brimmed hat accepted sips of beer from his friends who relaxed below him. Women fussed with their bright, polka-dotted trajes gitanas the same way I had fussed with my prom dresses. People lounged against the delicate cart, mere inches away from the bulls.

 The gathering was so foreign and yet so familiar. Everyone seemed to know everyone. If not for a trickle of other foreigners on the outskirts of the crowd, my parents and I would’ve felt like wedding crashers. It was an ancient ceremony, a concert, a family reunion, and a block party rolled into one. As the dancing picked up, you didn’t have to understand the language to see blooming romances and love triangles. People took videos and photos and I wondered how they used to record the events of the festivities. A few sun-drenched minutes passed quite slowly, as they often did in Spain. Then, with a rumble, the pick-up truck drove away and the bulls were hitched to the cart in its stead. Without ceremony or signal, the cart moved off. People followed its glacial pace, beers in hand, singing and laughing at each other. 

To this day, I have no clue what celebration we witnessed. Many fairs and festivals pop up across the south of Spain in late May and early June, though this one seems to have no name or Wikipedia page. These celebrations are older than the governments that organize them and they refuse to disappear. Some say participating in the religious festivities of Spain is like traveling back in time. Actually, they are a modern manifestation of a proud history; part pilgrimage, part fair, all joy. They are uniquely ‘now’.

Tortilla

Blog Post

My parents always told me: “Food is love.” This meant my house was always stocked with comfort foods: everything from Oreos to penne bolognese. So when my host mother’s first question to me was, “¿Qué quieres pa’ comer esta noche? What do you want to eat tonight?” in her thick Andalusian accent, I thought I could learn to love Córdoba, Spain. We met in the train station and, after the formalities, we took a cab to what was going to be my home for the next four months: Apartment A, 3rd floor, on Duque de Hornachuelos road. As soon as I settled into my room Paquita called out, as she would for every meal we had together, “¡Camille! ¡Comemos!”

I’d been eating on Spanish time for two weeks already during our program orientation, but it still felt strange settling in for dinner at 9:45 pm. Paquita refused to let me help her as she carefully carried three separate trays into the living room one by one. She set mine down in front of me and I took stock: a salad composed of iceberg lettuce, carrots, corn, and olive oil, a plastic cup of chocolate pudding, a small roll, and tortilla.

When I first arrived in Spain, I assumed that tortilla was the same as the one I was accustomed to in the US—flat, flour-based, hopefully wrapped around meat and beans. Tortillas are one of my favorite staples and I was quite distressed to be told it would be nothing like the food I was used to. Tortilla española is quite a different beast. Made entirely of egg and chunks of potato, it is cooked in a skillet like an omelet and cut into little wedges, with the occasional onion mixed in as desired. I found that my plate held half of the round. No little wedges for Paquita’s host daughter. It didn’t look like anything special. It was store-bought—all she’d done was pop it in the counter-top oven for a minute or two to bring it up to room temperature. And yet, I finished my half in fifteen minutes flat. Paquita urged me to eat more and I did my best in my clumsy Spanish to keep her from bringing me another helping. 

Francisca “Paquita” Lope Sanchez had raised three children and hosted 48 other study-abroad daughters, each of them incredibly well fed (she never let anyone leave the table without a second helping). She was a short, white-haired woman who initially intimidated me with her perfect lipstick and fancy scarves. But her continual warmth and wonderful food soon made me more than comfortable.

Tortilla became my comfort food, an opinion I seemed to share with most of Spain. Each restaurant had it on their menu, no matter its atmosphere. Bar Santos, the classic local cervecería—beer hall—was no exception. It was carefully placed in a shaded corner with a tall bar and chairs so high you have to jump a little to sit in them. “Beer hall” is certainly a bit of a stretch, since you can’t fit inside for much longer than the time it takes to order and pay. I often peered into the packed, dingy interior to ogle their famous version of tortilla. The tiny restaurant faces the world-famous Mezquita de Córdoba, the Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba, an awe-inspiring marriage of Islamic and Catholic houses of worship. Hence the name, “Bar of Saints” or “Holy Bar.” They kept their wares on display: a small glass case with a spotlight showcased their unique tortilla, nearly a foot tall. The tourists who did fight the crowd to order it came out with paper-thin sheets of egg and potato on paper plates and found their way to the shady steps nearby to eat.

Bar Santos, oriented towards short-term visitors as it was, didn’t tempt me. But 100 Montaditos did. 100 Montaditos is a large, rowdy chain restaurant with locations all over Spain. Its name directly translates to “100 Little Sandwiches” and that’s exactly what they offer. My friends and I, on the rare nights we didn’t eat at home, would enter, battle for a too-short table, and then take turns at the counter rattling off the numbers of the sandwiches we wanted. After anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour, the little sandwiches, arranged artfully on a platter, would pop out at the little window under a heat lamp. Montadito #2 is “Tortilla de patatas” and I ordered it every time, eating my pinky sized roll stuffed full of tortilla with gusto.

Turning from one tortilla to another marked my transition from one culture to another. The fact that I knew the difference at all made me feel more included in Spanish culture. Walking into a restaurant familiar with the menu and confident of my order made me feel competent and comfortable. But there was nothing that compared to Paquita’s tortilla. I had seen it in the packaging, seen her put it in the oven; there was no reason it should taste any better. I figured there could only be one difference: Paquita made it with love. I came home every night just to hear her call, “¡Camille! ¡Comemos!” and find my half-moon of eggs and potatoes waiting.